Republicans

In about a half-hour from now, President Barack Obama will blast Republicans for not striking a deal to avert the impending spending cuts known as sequestration. The President and his allies will push the theme, once again, that Republicans only look out for the well-to-do and don’t care about the poor and middle class.

“According to a White House official, Obama hopes to aggressively pressure congressional Republicans, depicting the choice over the sequester as one between protecting healthcare and national defense or protecting tax loopholes for the wealthiest Americans.” (Justin Sink, “Obama To Press GOP On Sequester Deal As Deadline Approaches,” The Hill, 2/19/13)

Today, Old Dominion Research Group released a new research study exposing the true nature of today’s dysfunction in Washington, D.C, and why it is “broken.” You can find the study online here.

From the study’s introduction:

To keep the U.S. Senate firmly within their clutches, Senate Democrats are playing the blame game again. They have successfully built a narrative – aided and abetted by the establishment media – that “Washington is broken” because Republicans are partisan, intransigent obstructionists.

As the following research study outlines, the current dysfunction that has left “Washington broken” begins and ends with Senate Democrats, specifically Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).

Unless you live in a hole or just pay no attention whatsoever to what is going on, you know by now that President Barack Obama kicked-off his reelection campaign this weekend with stops in Columbus, Ohio, and Richmond, Virginia.

Yesterday, Terence P. Jeffrey of CNS Newsreported the Presidentially-appointed board of directors of the U.S. Export-Import Bank, an agency of the federal government, authorized financing for a $2.84 billion expansion and upgrade of an oil refinery in Cartagena, Columbia. Does it strike you at all as odd that while this agency is providing financing to a foreign country to refine oil, our own country’s ability to refine oil is on the decline?

Consider this:

“There hasn’t been a new refinery built in the U.S. since 1976. . .” (John W. Schoen, “U.S. Refiners Stretch To Meet Demand,” MSNBC, 11/22/04)

“There are 148 operating refineries in the United States, down from 324 in 1981.” (Eleanor Stables, “H.R. 3893: Gasoline For America’s Security Act Of 2005,” CQ BillAnalysis, 10/8/05)

As Tim Carney reported yesterday in The Washington Examiner, Planned Parenthood spent more than $700,000 in 2010 lobbying the federal government, doled out more than “$148,000 to federal candidates – almost all Democrats – during the 2010 election cycle,” and also spent nearly $1 million in independent expenditures during the 2010 cycle to support Democrats or oppose Republicans.

But these figures tell only a fraction of the story. Abortion is a political special interest, just like “Big Oil” or “Big Labor.” But the pro-abortion special interest lobby doesn’t spread its money around like other special interests. The abortion “industry” pumps millions of dollars into the federal election system. Not surprisingly, it is members of the Democrat Party who benefit nine times out of ten from the industry’s blood money.

Democrats successfully painted Republicans as radical ideologues in the budget showdown over defunding Planned Parenthood. Painted into a corner where Republicans would be blamed for shutting the government down over women’s “health care,” the GOP really had no choice but to remove the rider from negotiations.

Consider for a moment though, Planned Parenthood has received over $2.3 billion in taxpayer money since 2001. At the same time, Planned Parenthood has provided over 2.4 million abortions and has given out more than 9.9 million morning-after pills, also an abortion. At the same time, Planned Parenthood has only given 20,219 adoption referrals.

Republicans are the radical ideologues? Make no mistake here, there’s nothing more radical than Democrats insisting, as Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) did, that the U.S. Senate would “never, never, never” defund Planned Parenthood. Democrats were the ones in the end who would have rather shutter the government than defund abortion.

For decades, throwing money at education has been the cure-du-jour for America’s educational ills. In 1979, the Democrat controlled Congress passed the Department of Education Organization Act establishing a Cabinet-level department for education in the federal government. President Jimmy Carter, America’s greatest one-term President, signed the legislation into law and the U.S. Department of Education (ED) began operating the following year, in 1980.

For its first year in operation, Congress appropriated $14 billion to the new bureaucratic entity. Nearly 30 years later, the budget ballooned to $68.6 billion (2008 appropriations), a 390% increase in federal spending. Overall, appropriators have spent over $1 trillion of taxpayer money through ED alone. This figure does not include local and state spending, just the federal portion.

Stephen Dinan over at The Washington Timesreported today that the “federal government posted its largest monthly deficit in history in February at $223 billion, according to preliminary numbers the Congressional Budget Office released Monday morning.”

“That figure tops last February’s record of $220.9 billion, and marks the 29th straight month the government has run in the red — a modern record.” (Stephen Dinan, “Government Posts Biggest Monthly Deficit Ever,” The Washington Times, 3/7/11)

As a government shutdown looms over spending cuts, Senate Democrats have fallen all over themselves to say: Republicans won’t compromise with Democrats; blame for a shutdown will be placed squarely on Republicans; and how radical the spending cuts are that passed the House.

Funny, really. While you see Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the Senate Democrat Policy Committee Chairman, on all the Sunday talk-shows talking about a government shutdown, what you don’t see is Chuck or his fellow Senate Democrats who control the calendar and the agenda, doing anything to avoid a shutdown.

Under Republican leadership, the House has cast over 140 votes so far this year. The last came on February 19th at 4:30 in the morning. The Senate, run by Democrats? 25 votes, the last being February 17th at 8:30 in the evening.

When folks debate, they are prone to embellish, exaggerate, make things up and/or make incorrect statements. Nothing is more up for debate these days than spending cuts, so you tend to hear a lot of outlandish things as each side attempts to bolster their case.

Republicans have proposed cuts to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), specifically $50 million. Democrats, in the pocket of Big Labor, naturally oppose cuts to the NLRB. In fact, President Barack Obama’s new budget proposal calls for an increase of $300 million for the board.

So, when it comes to cutting anything to do with Big Labor, Democrats fall all over themselves to come to their defense. Witness U.S. Representative Eliot Engel (D-NY) as he attempts to tug at the heart strings of football fans across the country, stating that cuts to the NLRB would jeopardize the NFL’s 2011 season.